


For the miracles and the wonders, for the redemption and the battles

by BarbaraKaterina



Series: 2020 Holiday Fics [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alienages (Dragon Age), F/F, Hanukkah, alternate worship of the Maker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28149114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarbaraKaterina/pseuds/BarbaraKaterina
Summary: Ellana Lavellan struggles to find light and joy in a world where she was so thoroughly betrayed. Kallian Tabris helps.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Female Tabris (Dragon Age), Lavellan/Tabris (Dragon Age), past Lavellan/Solas - Relationship
Series: 2020 Holiday Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043775
Kudos: 1





	For the miracles and the wonders, for the redemption and the battles

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh. This would almost be late for the third week of Advent, let alone the second. But I just barely managed to post it before Hanukkah ended, so that's something I guess. I simply ran out of spoons.
> 
> Belated Hanukkah Sameach!

“I got the oil!” Kallian announced triumphantly, entering the dark, dingy room where Ellana was huddled over her letters with one sputtering candle.

Upon hearing this, she turned around and gave Kallian a suspicious look. “And what exactly,” she asked, “did you have to do to get it? How many people are dead?”

“No one is dead,” Kallian protested indignantly. At Ellana’s patient look, she admitted: “Some people...might have been injured a little, but nothing serious, I swear.”

Ellana sighed. She didn’t have it in her to protest. She understood the celebration was important to Kallian, and to every other city elf, really. But she couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if they drew too much attention to themselves.

Kallian must have seen the tension in her face, because she came closer to clap her on the back. “It’s fine,” she said. “I swear, it is. You know I am always careful.”

Ellana exhaled. It was true - Kallian was careful, though not in a way Ellana entirely approved of, as it usually resulted in more dead people than she would consider strictly necessary, because, as Kallian would say in those situations, there is no such thing as too careful.

But every time Ellana wanted to protest what, to her, felt like needless killing, she would see Solas in her mind doing the same, and she would grow angry enough to be inclined to slaughter herself, and have no will to criticise Kallian left.

They were fighting for survival of the whole world, against someone who had no compunction at all against slaughtering millions, whatever his pretty words. Some things were inevitable.

But it was time for a celebration now, and Ellana had promised Kallian she wouldn’t be thinking of _him_ during it, at least, and so she would do her best.

“Do you need help with anything?” She asked instead.

Kallian hesitated. “I suppose you could start on the food…” she said slowly. “I’m not sure how well you can make the dough, but, um…”

“I will try,” Ellana replied. Cooking was certainly not the easiest skill to retain with only one hand, but it wasn’t the hardest either. Cutting things was hard, but making dough, Ellana thought, should be just about manageable as long as she used a little ingenuity.

“I’m sorry,” Kallian said, sounding truly apologetic. “I would let you help with the rest, but the others…”

Ellana nodded. She understood their misgivings perfectly. It’s not like her clan would have let a city elf take part in celebrating one of the Evanuris - _she would not think of him, she would not, and she would not cry_ \- and so it was no wonder that, in a rite that celebrated the Maker, the city elves did not want Ellana’s presence, for all that her beliefs had undergone a profound change.

She had struggled heavily with this after the...revelation, with what it meant for the religion she grew up in. She didn’t like the idea of a world with no gods at all, but she hadn’t thought she could ever accept the shem Maker, not even after being seen as his prophet’s Herald for so long - or perhaps especially because of that.

It was Kallian who helped her, in the end. She had shown her that belief in the Maker, the way city elves practiced it, was different from the shems. She had told her the stories about how the elves were the older of the Maker’s children, and how they worshipped him first, and how they knew rites and customs the shemlen did not have. She had explained how Andraste was hardly acknowledged amongst the elves at all, how Shartan was seen as the rightful prophet instead, and let her read the commentary on the Chant that had been produced in the Dales and had been carefully kept by city hahrens since then. It was through these commentaries that Ellana found her way to the elven worship of the Maker, and left the Evanuris behind. This would be the first Festival of Lights she would celebrate, but she would celebrate it honestly, from the bottom of her heart.

Still, she could not blame the others for their mistrust.

“We will have some guests,” Kallian said, intruding upon her thoughts with some quite surprising news.

“Guests?” Ellana asked, and fought the impulse to demand whether it wasn’t dangerous. Kallian knew what she was doing.

“Yes,” Kallian smiled at her, a beautiful smile that always made Ellana ache a little “guests. You will see.” She winked, and left the house again, presumably to arrange some matters of the festival celebration, as Ellana started on the food.

-

The guests, to her complete astonishment, turned out to be the Viscount of Kirkwall and the Divine herself.

Ellana gaped at them with her mouth wide open when tey entered the tiny house and took off their hoods.

“What?” She squeaked, her eyes flying to Kallian looking very smug. “How the hell do you think this is going to help us fly under the radar?”

“You forget, Inquisitor, that we are both spies,” Varric said drily.

“Used to be,” Leliana corrected him softly, with one of her almost-not-there smiles. “I live an entirely respectable life now, as expedited of the Divine of the Chantry.”

“...which is why you come to participate in heretical elven festivals,” Ellana muttered incedulously.

Leliana frowned at her. “You knew from the start that one of the things I wanted for the Chantry was better relationship with elves.”

Ellana waved her hand in the air, a little desperately. “That was before I knew what city elf worship was really like! This is not...they won’t...those who live in alienages at least, they won’t wish to become chantry mothers and sisters! They won’t wish to worship Andraste!”

“I know,” Leliana said evenly. “I read your letters.” Ellana had been writing them rather frantically since she found out, trying to explain all the ways in which they’d been wrong in their plans. “I have also known some of it from Briala before you wrote to me, though she is rather more reluctant with her information that you are.”

“Don’t blame her,” Kallian muttered. “When Ellana told me she wanted to write to you about this, I almost died on the spot. You do realize that most of your Chantry would cheerfully burn us at the stake if they know what exactly we believed in?”

“And yet you still invited her here,” Ellana pointed out, at the same time that Leliana said: “And that is precisely what needs to change.”

Kallian only sighed, then looked at Ellana and said quietly: “She is your friend, and her and Varric are the only two I could trust to get here without betraying your location.”

“The Divine and the Viscount,” Ellana repeated, very dubiously.

“I will have you know that I am on an official visit with King Alistair,” Varric said primly.

“And I had urgent matters to discuss with His Grace,” Leliana agreed.

“And no one noticed you leaving the castle,” Ellana said flatly. It wasn’t even the middle of the night! They came in time for the sunset celebration and the lighting of candles!

“There just happened to be a Merchant Guild group at the same time,” Varric said innocently. “I realize that dwarves are somewhat obvious just walking around the castle, so I left with them.”

“And if you truly believe I cannot leave that castle unseen, then I kept my secrets better, working for you, than I ever thought,” Leliana added.

Ellana knew, rationally, that they were right - Solas was highly unlikely to have spies good enough in Denerim to catch these two; if she thought he had spies like that here, she would have never settled in such a place. Kallian kept the city as safe from his people as she could. But she couldn’t help feeling anxious and jittery all the same, feeling like all her worries of the last months were manifested here in these friends and guests and dangerous, influential people who could help her save the world but could also ruin everything with one wrong word and... 

And Kallian stepped closer to her and embraced her.

“It’s going to be fine,” she said. “I promise.” Ellana clung to her, allowing herself the comfort she knew she sorely needed. She had begun to spiral like this before, a few times, but never, she thought, quite this badly. 

Kallian led her into their sleeping nook, where she settled her on the bed as Leliana and Varric politely stepped as far away from them as possible to give them privacy.

“Why?” Ellana asked her quietly, once they’d sat there for a while and she got herself under control a little.

“You deserve to have good friends here,” Kallian whispered into her ear. “This is your celebration too.”

Ellana blinked the tears from her eyes. She was exhausted, suddenly, and not up to any kind of emotional shields, and so she asked, very softly, the question that had been on her mind for months now: “Is that what we are? Friends?”

Kallian pulled away a little so that she could look her in the eyes. “If you want,” she said. “We can be something else, too.”

Instead of answering in words, Ellana leaned in and kissed her.

When they went to light the candles, her friends’ eyes were twinkling with happiness for her under their hoods, and she and Kallian were holding hands.

And as the main lights were lit in front of the vhenadahl, Ellana thought: yes. For the miracles and the wonders, for the redemption and the battles. She had had many of those until now, and she would hope and pray there would be many more to come, and that the Maker would keep her in His favour.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided that, as alienages were inspired by Jewish ghettos, it was time to fully lean into the allegory. Also I like the idea of Lavellan being the Herald of Andraste but only converting to the Maker once she got away from the Chantry.


End file.
